It’s an AI world and we’re all just living in it.
PitchBook released its Q2 2026 U.S. VC Valuations data this week, and the report aligns with the skewed venture market we’ve come to know: Investors are willing to pay up for a few anointed AI companies, and (almost) everything else is a pass or rounding error. For the first half of this year, AI megadeals were where 87.5% of all U.S. venture dollars went.
There are valuation step-ups outside AI—it’s just that the AI premium is undeniable. PitchBook says that non-AI companies at the median saw valuation step-ups of 1.6x, whereas for AI that was 2.2x. It’s Series D and later where the gulf gets vast, where for AI that number has become 6.6x.
“The Series D+ step-up is clear evidence of how much AI is driving venture valuations,” said Emily Zheng, PitchBook senior research analyst, via email. “Median velocity of value creation at that stage jumped from $108.9 million in 2025 to over $1 billion in 2026, nearly a 10x increase. Top AI companies like Anthropic are driving this growth, as its valuation grew 5.3x in just eight months. Venture returns already follow a power law, and AI has raised the bar for what an outsized valuation looks like.”
